and Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad, al-Zuhrī, ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, Yahyā ibn Saʿīd al-Ansārī, Rabīʿah ibn Abī ʿAbd al-Rahmān, Abū al-Zinād, Yahyā ibn Abī Kathīr, Qatādah, Mansūr ibn al-Muʿtamir, al-Aʿmash, Hammād ibn Abī Sulaymān, Hishām al-Dastawāʾī, and Saʿīd ibn Abī ʿArūbah.
Then came those after them, such as Mālik ibn Anas, Hammād ibn Zayd, Hammād ibn Salamah, al-Layth [ibn Saʿd] (1), al-Awzāʿī, Abū Hanīfah, Ibn Abī Laylā, Sharīk, Ibn Abī Dhiʾb, and Ibn al-Mājishūn.
Then came those after them, such as Yahyā ibn Saʿīd [al-Qattān] (2), ʿAbd al-Rahmān ibn Mahdī, Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāh, ʿAbd al-Rahmān ibn al-Qāsim, Ashhab ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Abū Yūsuf, Muhammad [ibn al-Hasan] (3), al-Shāfiʿī, Ahmad [ibn Hanbal] (4), Ishāq [ibn Rāhawayh] (5), Abū ʿUbayd, Abū Thawr, and others whose number none but Allah can count. These were men who had no motive to give precedence to anyone other than the person of superior merit, whether for the sake of authority or wealth. They were among the foremost (6) of people in their examination of knowledge and their uncovering of its realities, and they all agreed that Abū Bakr and ʿUmar were superior.
(* Indeed, the earliest Shiʿa who lived in ʿAlī’s time gave precedence to Abū Bakr